Introduction & Overview of Spunk by Zora Neale Hurston

Spunk Introduction

"Spunk" was only the third short story Zora Neale Hurston published, and it was immediately successful. She had been encouraged to come to New York City by Charles S. Johnson, the editor of the National Urban League's influential magazine, Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life, because Johnson had published her second story, "Drenched in Light," and recognized her talent. At Johnson's urging, Hurston entered "Spunk" in Opportunity's 1925 literary contest and took second prize for fiction. (A play she submitted, Color Struck, took second prize for drama.) The story was published in the June 1925 issue of the magazine, and Hurston's career was launched. Later that year, the story was included in The New Negro: An Interpretation, an anthology of fiction, poetry, and essays edited by Alain Locke, a former philosophy professor of Hurston's at Howard University. The anthology became one of a handful of important and widely read collections...
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